


Lightning Bugs

by berribitch



Series: Rayllum Week 2019 [1]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Rayllum Week, how many days will i do? who knows!, tbh just soft shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 22:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18417479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berribitch/pseuds/berribitch
Summary: Surrounded by fireflies that dance around so beautifully in their own soft glow, Callum is where her eyes land.Day 1: Fireflies





	Lightning Bugs

**Author's Note:**

> Catching fireflies and catching feelings....its a love bug, if you will.
> 
> I'm not sure if I will be doing the other days, and if i do, if it will be all of them, but hey. Here's hoping.

“Hey Rayla. Come check this out.”

Callum is already getting up and walking away, and Rayla reluctantly follows. She wants to ask where they’re going when it’s so late, but Callum leaves his stuff behind, so she knows it’s not far.

He leads them to a small clearing. Callum moves towards the tall grass and prompts Rayla to follow. They enter the tall field of grass, surrounded by trees that nearly cover all moonlight. Tilting his head back towards her for only a second, she catches the glint in his eyes. Callum reaches out his hands, just barely brushing the blades of grass beneath his fingertips. It is quiet and dark, and the further Callum wanders into the small prairie, the harder it is to see him. Rayla starts to follow him, to ask him not to wander off so far when it's so dark, but his entire figure is quickly illuminated by the small lights floating from the ground. 

Finally, Callum does turn around, a smile stretching across his entire face as he looks at her, and Rayla has to catch her breath for just a moment. Alongside the brief glimpses of moonlight beneath the canopy above them, the small glow dancing around him almost feels like staring at the stars. 

Embarrassingly, it takes Rayla a moment too long to recognize the lights as fireflies. 

Callum turns from her, eyeing the bug in front of him with intense focus, watching the soft fading of the lights. It's a quiet rhythm, slow and steady, like a heartbeat, even and sure. The light dims, but Callum keeps his eyes focused, before outreaching his hands far more fiercely than Rayla expected in the still of the night. She takes a step forward, as if to go closer but too hesitant to continue. As the gentle bloom of light comes back, its rays are blocked by the prince's fingers. 

"Hey!" she whispers as loudly and as fiercely as she can, although she’s not sure why she’s whispering at all. Callum jumps slightly. "What are you doing?" she continues, still rather assertive, but not quite as harshly. 

Callum raises both his eyebrows. In his hands, the firefly has started to shine again. He outstretches his cupped hands towards her. "Catching fireflies," he says simply, which just confuses Rayla more. But the firefly in his hand is still humming a subdued brilliance, and Callum is smiling at her so tenderly that she pushes her doubts away and walks forward slowly. 

"How come?"

"What do you mean?"

Rayla is now within arm's length of Callum and she tries to sneak a glance at the creature trapped in his hands. She hopes she's subtle, but by the way that Callum extends his arms towards her in a hesitant way tells her that she was perhaps too obvious. His clasped hands are up by his face now and he leans closer to her. 

She shifts the weight from one foot to the other and crosses her arms. "I mean, what are you catching fireflies for?" she tries again. 

Callum tilts his head down to look at his palms, checking if the firefly is still there. He is answered by a languid glow. Head tilted down, his eyes shift up to look at her, and his face is all at once illuminated by the mellow blaze, softening his features and highlighting his green eyes. He opens his hands, not once taking his eyes off of her, and even as the small blip flies past her, she continues to stare as well. 

"It's...just something kids do. Something I did when I was allowed out at night. A lot of things just feel so..." he trails off. He raises his head and Rayla is forced to realize just how close the two of them are now. "It felt a bit....whimsical, I guess. Although, a lot of things did as a kid." Callum gives her a smile so bright it rivals both the moon and the fireflies. He turns his head away now, looking towards all the fireflies around them. 

Rayla breathes again, what feels like the first time since she had stepped towards him in the grassy field. "So, humans capture other creatures for fun."

He whips his head around, shooting her an unimpressed look. "It's not like that. And besides, we let them go." He then grabs both her hands, bringing them up between their chests. "Come on. Give it try. I promise no insects will be harmed during this process." His smile is more sly and he's raising one eyebrow now, but with her hands clasped in his, she finds it hard to refuse. 

She rolls her eyes but gives him a grin anyway. "Fine then." Callum nods, smile still in place, and opens his hands, and Rayla follows suit. 

"Now, just cup your hands like this," he starts, demonstrating to her, and she finds it silly because she thinks she can catch a bug but listens to him anyway, "and when you see one, close your hands," he clamps them shut, almost like they're wrapped around a ball, with plenty of space in between, "and, well, there you go!"

Rayla takes a second just to give him a flat stare before ultimately peering around, searching for a nearby insect. In the dark, it's a little hard to see the small fly when not lit, but after finding a prime target, she carefully reaches out. With all the grace of a trained assassin, Rayla's hands encircle the beetle in an instant. "Nice!" she hears, but she doesn't look up, still eyeing her hands. 

She blinks once. Then twice, as she shifts her gaze up towards him again. A third time before she finally feels the bug crawling on her skin, and she asks, "Now what?"

Callum's face drops before coming closer to her once more. His hands delicately encapsulate her own, prying her fingers just barely apart, and peers down at the firefly. 

"Now, you just...take it in, I guess. Looking at it is part of the fun."

Rayla barely glances downwards, instead opting to focus on the boy in front of her. With a small, sweet smile and head tilted just slightly to the side, he looks rather peaceful. WIth his hands on hers, a silent dark night, and their faces so close together, she realizes that the moment is rather intimate. Against all sense, Rayla finds herself enjoying this stilled moment. For just the night, she fixates on the hushed tenderness, on the comfortable silence between them, the gentle look on his face, and she embraces it. Tomorrow, when she looks back on it, she can long for a better time, found in the past, and hopefully in their future. She hopes she can one day be infatuated with the easy warmth and comfort that comes with the still of this night because tomorrow morning she will not have the luxury to do so, not with a war raging between two worlds. For now though, she indulges in this fleeting bridge he has built with his own two hands resting on hers and welcomes the quiet amity. 

"Alright," Callum's voice cuts through, "time to let it go." He pulls his hands away and Rayla drops her arms to mirror him. The firefly floats away, almost as if it had never been touched in the first place. Callum's eyes are still trained on the light. "Letting it go is also part of the fun." He finally glances at her and his eyes seem distant. She's left to wonder if he's reminded of something from long ago. She wonders if she'll have the same look in her eye when she sees fireflies from now on. 

"See? That wasn't so bad, right?"

She crosses her arms again, if only because she felt too awkward and open without doing so. "Yeah," she admits, lips turning upward, "it was alright." 

The fireflies are clearing out now, leaving the two of them sitting in the pale, hidden moonlight. "We should really get some proper sleep now, huh?" 

Rayla nods, already turning around. "Yeah. We really should." She starts walking away and she can hear Callum jogging to catch up to her. He falls in place beside her, but much further than would be expected from a guy who just essentially held her hands. Walking back is quiet, but the walk is short, so there's not much silence to fill. Callum leaves her side, bidding her goodnight and she returns the sentiment, turning away from him to try and convince herself there is more distance between them than there actually is. 

When she settles in for the night, looking up at the starry sky, and she ponders how she became so entwined with this human prince.

**Author's Note:**

> I was gonna have Rayla reach for the stars and mimic catching a firefly, but like, im not that cheesy or dramatic lmao i have my limits
> 
> also, i have no idea when this takes place like originally it was supposed to be before the egg hatched, but they wouldnt be close enough to do this at that point, and then it was after with Lujanne but that had too many issues as well, and then it was- well, what im saying is this fic exists in a nebulous void where timelines dont matter, so im sorry.
> 
> also, despite the title (I MEAN lightning?? cmon i couldnt pass that up) i never call them lightning bugs in the fic itself bc somehow, it just doesnt sound as magical lol


End file.
